{"id":48159,"date":"2024-08-19T18:56:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T22:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=48159"},"modified":"2024-11-04T09:31:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T14:31:44","slug":"save-the-shepherd-the-people-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-pastoralism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/save-the-shepherd-the-people-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-pastoralism\/","title":{"rendered":"Save the Shepherd: The People Ushering In a New Era of Pastoralism"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Photography by Chelo Lopez<\/em><\/p>\n

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No farms, no food\u2014it\u2019s a phrase you\u2019ve probably seen on a bumper sticker, but its message only tells half the story. To truly call out the forces threatening our grub, the slogan needs a slight tweak: No farmers<\/em>, no food.<\/p>\n

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For centuries, we\u2019ve relied on traditions of ancestral succession to keep farms running. But with Boomers aging out of the business and millions of acres of land set to change hands in the next 20 years, it\u2019s getting harder to convince young people to dedicate themselves to a life in overalls\u2014and their ambivalence has thrown the industry into a bit of an identity crisis.<\/p>\n

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The (second) oldest profession<\/h3>\n

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These personnel shortages have hit cheese hardest at ground zero: shepherds. While this term may bring to mind sheep (or the Bible, or Brokeback Mountain<\/em>), here it functions as a catchall for anyone who raises grazing animals for milk. It is, as one source told me, one of the oldest professions (second only to prostitution), and it reaches far beyond a man with a staff in the Basque country. There are shepherds on almost every continent, from Fulani cowherds in West Africa to S\u00e1mi reindeer herders in the Arctic. (There are also goatherds in southern China, Raika camel herders in Rajasthan, Quechua alpaca and llama herders on the Andean altiplano, Kazakh nomads taking yaks across the Mongolian Steppe, and people leading water buffalo through the marshes of southern Iraq.)<\/p>\n

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And all this work is integral to cheese, because every one of these animals produces milk. \u201cThey basically act as solar aggregators,\u201d says Ilse K\u00f6hler-Rollefson, a camel farmer, author, and program manager for the League of Pastoral Peoples. \u201cThey eat in these sparsely vegetated areas, they produce food in areas where nothing else can be done.\u201d Grazing animals are also great for soil, putting nutrients back into the dirt and reducing flood risk by increasing water capacity. Farms have even begun leasing their flocks out for something called \u201cprescribed grazing,\u201d in which the animals serve any number of purposes: keeping a lawn neat without running a mower, mitigating fire risk, targeting invasive plants, and cutting grass beneath vast solar arrays no machines can fit beneath.<\/p>\n

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Shepherds make all this possible. They manage field rotation to guard against overgrazing, keep an eye on their flock\u2019s health, and protect the animals from predators. It\u2019s grueling work that gets little glory\u2014and even less income.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Farmer Alba Lopez with a cow.<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

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Grazing under fire<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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What money shepherds do<\/em> make is under new threat every day.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn Europe, we are required to [meet] environmental laws and standards,\u201d says Llorema Madrid Zapata, who raises 4,000 Lacaune sheep for her cheesemaking operation, Quesos Ruperto, in Murcia, Spain. \u201cProducts that come from outside Europe are not.\u201d This was echoed by another sheep farmer in Galicia, Alba Lopez: \u201c[They need to] regulate the products that enter from outside the EU that compete with us in prices even when they do not meet the requirements,\u201d such as limitations on pesticide use.<\/p>\n

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Another major issue raised by nearly every shepherd I spoke to was wolves. Wolves were endangered in the late 20th century, so EU countries launched initiatives to bring them back\u2014initiatives that, incidentally, put grazing animals in danger. There are programs to compensate farmers for herd loss, but they involve a lot of hoop-jumping: one requires a carcass be presented, a tough ask when wolves are known for eating their prey.<\/p>\n

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This exemplifies a dynamic that plays out across all efforts to save these centuries-old professions: a stark language barrier between rural pastoralists and the bureaucrats tasked with helping them. There is funding available to support, for example, technological innovations like GPS collars for animals or apps to help monitor herd health, but few milk farmers have the time to learn how to use them.<\/p>\n

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The European Commission\u2019s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was designed to keep farming a viable profession and safeguard the food supply for generations, but it is dense.<\/em> The provisions within often remain opaque to the very folks they\u2019re designed to help. All farms in the EU have a farm advisory system (FAS) to help people make sense of the grants, subsidies, and regulations that apply to them, but the utility of this arm varies across countries. And, often, the CAP falls short of what farmers say is needed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not just a question of money,\u201d says K\u00f6hler-Rollefson. \u201cIt\u2019s a question of preventing the use of the land for other purposes.\u201d The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that about one quarter of EU flocks have been lost in the last two decades, a number that leaves loads of pastureland vulnerable to developers\u2014land that, if lost, would have huge implications for society, the air, and the planet.<\/p>\n

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And some farmers would rather see their products succeed than live off the government. \u201cThe CAP is a great help,\u201d says Lopez, \u201c[but] we ask that our work be valued and that the sector be valued so that it can be profitable without needing to survive [on] subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Save the shepherd<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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Lopez farms in Spain, where a massive groundswell of attention has been building around the loss of sheep and shepherding. The numbers are stark: In Catalonia, the sheep population nearly halved from 1982\u20132009. In 2023, there was a Manchego shortage due to understaffing. This is perhaps why Spain is also the site of countless indie efforts to revivify pastoralism.<\/p>\n

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Michele Buster, co-founder of Spanish cheese importer Forever Cheese and artisan cheese celebrity, is at the forefront of this effort. Her \u201cSave the Shepherd\u201d campaign (which we covered last year<\/a>) works with farmers in Italy and across the Iberian peninsula to document the lifestyle of a shepherd or milk farmer, and put that content in front of people who will either want to join in or support this work. She\u2019s also working with the Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund<\/a> in the U.S. to match American dairy farming apprentices with European farmers short on staff.<\/p>\n

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